LAND AND WATER. 
January 30, 1915. 
chiefs. It would mean a host of new experi- 
ments. It would mean even after the delay of 
chan<ylng from one material to the other, uncer- 
tainty, checks in provision, the calling in from time to 
time of badly manufactured or dangerous stuff. Ifc^ 
would mean either uuder-nitration for fear of 
mifitakea in the novel materials, or accidents and 
explosions in the magazines. It would be a very 
serious check to the enemy for a prolonged space in 
the war ; it would be a permanent drag upon him 
throughout the war. 
When wo say that habit is in the workman 
even more difficult to change than plant in the 
machinery, the practical man acquainted with manu- 
facture must be consulted, and will surely support 
such a contention. Under the strain of war 
especially, when every unit of energy that can be 
spared is being forced into the business of armament, 
of continued and feverish supply, to ask great bodies 
of men suddenly to change tricks of manipulation 
and acquired routine connected with a particular 
material and to adapt themselves to another untried 
material Ls like asking a general to change his front 
in the stress of battle. It is imposing upon this side 
of the enemy's strength the greatest weight we can 
impose upon it. 
To see the importance of the matter in its full 
light we may contrast cotton with copper. 
Copper is indeed a military necessity just as 
much as cotton is. Copper also could conceivably be 
replaced, but only by a worse material, and at an 
expense of change in habit of manufacture. Copper. 
is not a product of the enemy's country save in com- 
paratively small amounts. He must obtain it from 
without, and the blockade treats copper as contra- 
band. Further, the main supply comes, just a^ 
the cotton comes, from the greatest of the neutral 
countries. Copper is necessary to the manufacture 
of a rifle cartridge because its alloys and compounds 
can be drawn in the closed shape without a rim or 
joint, which makes the metal case of the cartridge 
gas-tight. These same compounds being much 
softer metal than any iron do not upon the explosion 
of the charge similarly damage the chamber into 
which the cartridge fits. Copper is necessary for 
making rings round every kind of shell, which rings 
take the rifling as the discharged projectile 
leaves the chamber and passes into the 
muzzle of the gun. But the amount of copper 
needed in proportion to the stocks available to 
Germany is something quite different from, and 
far less than, the similar proportion of cotton for 
explosives. It is true that something like £4 will be 
paid in gold by the German Government for as much 
copper as you could buy in the outer market for £1. 
But that is because Germany and her ally are 
wisely making provision for a prolonged struggle, 
and are determined not to be balked for lack of 
mere material. High as is the price of copper in 
Germany and Austria to-day the civilian electrical 
v/orks are not yet shut down, and the great reserves 
of copper in the foreign areas controlled by the 
German and Austrian armies have not seriously been 
damaged yet. 
The civilised world liandles every year, if 
I am not mistaken, something like a million tons 
of copper. Of this Germany handles every year 
about one-quarter, or 250,000 tons. Take such a 
stock of nfle cartridges as two thousand million, 
or say 500 rounds a man for the Germany Army 
in Its original strength, the amount of copper 
required for that vast stock I make out to be 
10,000 tons, or one -twenty-fifth only of the normal 
supply for the total industry of the nation. What 
may be needed for the rings of shells, large and 
small, would be a much more difficult calculation, 
for you have all sorts of sizes to take into account, 
and the rate of expenditure can only be very 
roughly and inaccurately guessed at. But multiply 
it by four times the amount required by the 
infantry, and you are still at no more than a fifth 
of the normal amount handled by the nation ia 
the year. Add to this the fact that the war was 
brought about at the moment chosen by Germany, 
that is, after Germany had been laying in stocks 
of every kind, and had prepared the fullest possible 
equipment, and add to this consideration again the 
known fact that the main masses of copper in the 
occupied countries — the electric light cables, the 
electric tramway cables, etc. — have not yet been 
touched, and you can but conclude that while ifc 
is an obvious military policy to prevent the entry 
of copper as far as possible into Germany and 
Austria, yet such a blockade can as yet, and for 
a very long time to come, do no more than un- 
quiet the enemy for the future. 
With cotton it is otherwise. It is not a material 
of which very large stocks are accumulated, or one 
which remains In stock very long, for It is bulky, and 
it is of its nature rapidly manufactured. Further, 
it cannot, like copper, be reduced to its original .state 
once manufactured. Again, it is far easier to control 
the imports of cotton than of copper. It is im- 
i)0S3ible to conceal it. It moves in vastly larger 
amounts, and there is not, as there is in the case of 
the metal, ai corresponding use for it in most of the 
neutral countries. Finally, the addition to our old 
stocks of cotton by purchase would be an operation. 
If immediately expensive, yet not ultimately depleting 
the resources of the nation. 
There must be repeated once more at the close 
of this note what was said in the middle of it : 
Political considerations may be strong enough to 
account for any modification of what would appear 
upon the surface to be a military necessity. It is 
none the less important for everyone concerned in 
this grave issue, the public, as well as their governors, 
to appreciate that the entry of cotton in Germany 
and Austria does not mean the entry only of a 
material which clothes the enemy's soldiers and 
increases the enemy's g"eneral wealth ; it means in 
the eyes of those who supply the armies everything 
that used to be meant years ago by the word gun- 
powder. It means the one most obvious and purely 
military necessity which the enemy necessarily lacks. 
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